Monday, May 8, 2017

I do not know if this is a general treat of my generation (I am from the vintage of ‘70s), but I always liked to seek new things to learn and explore. Even before switching to managerial positions, enlarging my understanding of the roles and expectations of various activity areas within the organisation was a crucial part of doing my job. I believe this had to do both with the need to integrate my work in ‘the big picture’ and the desire to avoid redundancies (or gaps!) in order to optimize results.

As a first time manager, when my then-boss entrusted me with the creation of a new department within a large bank, I set out an ambitious objective. My aim was to organize the process while motivating and empowering the team members in such a manner that, within three months from our kick-off meeting, they would be in the position to deliver almost anything on their own, as if I were not there. Of course I would stay on for a longer period of time, at least until we achieve stabilization of the new area we were supposed to build. However I wanted them to work as autonomously as possible, as this would allow me to focus on those managerial undertakings that had to do with political power balance within the organization, integration of the new process, establishing awareness and finally recognition of our team’s competence and results. And along the way, my other favorite priorities – travelling to understand better the local specifics, training and personal development of staff, within the team but also beyond...

The first adventure was cut short a little too soon in my perception, as I was offered an almost ‘mandatory’ promotion… don’t misunderstand me, it was not THAT kind of ‘mandatory’… purely once in a lifetime opportunity, which could not be passed. The decision to accept was also kind of a team decision and the carrot was a unique mix between an exceptional boss and the invitation to build another new area, on a higher level. Still, as the results seemed really great at that point, I decided to approach with similar simplicity the next journey. And so on…

In my opinion, the first phase of a managerial itinerary is building – process and team. No matter if this means to start from scratch or take over fully functional existing ones, it is a step no captain can skip, as sailors know very well… no matter how calm the weather looks when you start, you need to know that you can depend both on the ship and on every member of your crew when times get tough – and they always do!

I consider this phase as ‘delivered’ as soon as the team is able to operate efficiently on ‘business as usual’ mode, independently of my involvement. It can take from a couple of months to almost a year, depending on size and complexity, and it needs continuous fine-tuning and maintenance afterwards. For this purpose I usually recommend to focus on your own behavior: be fair and square with everyone, and make sure you are the first one to respect the new rules (which should be established in a transparent, credible and functional way!). Do not encourage people to jump ranks all day long, however keep your door open and listen patiently to all those who have good reason to address you with their concerns. Make sure your team can count on your support whenever duly needed. Finally, do not hesitate to recognize and timely address bad influence hubs, no matter if they threaten to contaminate the people or the processes.

The second phase, or better said focus area, is the integration of the construction into the bigger picture. This may overlap sometimes with the first, especially if the building phase takes a long time. As a manager, you need to ensure process feasibility for all the stakeholders involved, as well as position your team properly – power balance, remuneration, recognition of expertise, dependability of results. As one of my former bosses used to say, the first few months are crucial from this perspective – you should aim to achieve a quick gain (success story with notable impact) and a constructive lesson, and make sure they both spread through the organisation, in order to build trust and motivate the other stakeholders in future co-operation. The recognition should then consolidate over time, with due care towards both exceptional results and proper communication.

The last phase, just before steering the wheel to a new challenge, is the successful handover to the next manager. Ideally, this should happen smoothly if the building and integration phases includes a succession planning that gains acceptance from the main counterparts – the team and the higher managerial ranks. If this is not the case, then you will probably need to make the best of what you have, meaning you should not leave (too many) untied ends and loose cannons… if you care about reputation in the long run!

If you successfully went through all those three phases, you should now be ready to… start again!

And because this is the last episode of the Manager’s Mirror series, I will conclude it the same as the first episode – by extending what I shared today to all professionals out there, managers or ‘not yet’… While I believe specific expertise in the area you are about to embark upon is paramount in order to achieve best results within reasonable time, I also incline to recommend expanding your knowledge with every new challenge approached in your career. Step one would then be to build (your new expertise and support network), step two to integrate (into what you already know, into the team, into the future…), then handover to the next ‘former you’ and move on to the ‘future you’ – on a different (hopefully higher) level!

One positive aspect of this approach is that once you prove yourself reliable, result-oriented and loyal to a complex organization that you are compatible with, you can keep on learning and progressing every few years, and this will most probably pay off in the long run also from a managerial perspective.

And because I know that younger vintages are tempted to make changes rather often, I will close by sharing another advise from a former boss: you should learn new things every 2 years while in your 20s, every 3 years while in your 30s and stabilize within your comfort zone after 40s… as you should know by then what fits you best!

Saturday, May 6, 2017

Peter sends best regards to all of you and kindly asks for your patience and understanding a little longer, as it is the first time he takes a 'leave of absence' from this blog - and it is a thoroughly motivated one!

He is basically putting our hope & pray capacity to a big test these days... therefore I kindly ask all of you to join his dear wife and family in praying for his health, so that he keeps on feeding the EGO-OUT blog, which is a source of energy for him and of wisdom for many of us!

Monday, May 1, 2017

Please read today my associate's writing on our Blog.I have to sole some nasty and not completely known heath problems in the next days, sso I don't know if I can inform you daily.I am grateful to the many friends who have helped and supported this Blog.Please consider and re think what I have told you, many times aboutPdD incompleteness, LENR/LENR+ dichotomy and the Rossi vs Darden conflict.Tr ying to return to you!Yours faithfully,PeterLENR MONITOR

Dr Andrea Rossi:You wrote: ” The tide of some slendering voices chiming in along the way is just a stimulus to work better. They never made any damage”.You are totally right. Only, the “tide” is just a tenth of guys, always the same, that years since produce tens of attacks per day, a full time job, obviously a paid job. Who is paying them, apart the ventriloquist, whose payments have been disclosed in the published papers of the litigation?Godspeed,JJ

Before going into the details of this episode, I need to get back to the idea of the entire series and, more important, to its title – A Manager’s Mirror.

It does not only reflect the need for self-assessment (see the pilot episode) or the permanent exploration of the environment around (as mentioned in Episode I - just as in a thrilling but safe driving experience, you should put to good use all the mirrors in the car, while keeping eyes both on the road ahead and on the picturesque surroundings!).

The most important mirrors on a successful manager’s path are actually… his (her) people! They are all mirroring the attitude and responding to the feed-back they receive with the same coin, only usually amplified in terms of effect. Trust returns loyalty, confidence returns enthusiasm, while fear returns discontent. It has to do with the basic law of cause and effect, concentrated in an old Romanian proverb saying: ‘how you lay your bed determines how you sleep’.

Experience has revealed to me many times in different organizations that proper delegation and empowerment proves and at the same time strengthens reciprocal trust, builds mutual confidence and casts away everybody’s fears (or at least silences them for as long as necessary to get the job done!).

The key word here is ‘proper’ and it means that it does not work if the three conditions above are not met.

Before delegating an important task, you have to believe in the integrity of the person, in their professional ability to carry it through and in their maturity not to be overwhelmed by negative feelings and get lost along the way. You can start with smaller and less important things and support your colleague on the path of self-development, so that he (she) grows both professionally and personally until ready to take on more challenging jobs.

You also need to be fair and transparent in your feed-back, not hide behind your position to avoid conflict or put others down when they fail. Management is a two-way street and the best means to enlarge it is by sharing and learning from each other.

The first ingredient is the most essential – mutual trust. It is hard to build and easy to loose, and once it is lost becomes really difficult to get back (even though not always impossible!). The other two – confidence and fearlessness - are usually rooted in this one. Therefore, if you want to have a winning team, you need to relate with each of its member on that level or be honest and carefully separate your ways, as fair and constructively as possible, but still as early in the process as necessary not to hurt the rest of the team.

I believe you all wonder by now – is there a simple ‘ABC success key’ to unlock and align the three properly on your managerial path?

The good news is that once you see them in your own mirror, it is not so hard to contaminate everyone around. The bad news is that I do not believe in universal recipes for that. The only thing I can do is share mine today, as I see it when I look back on the past 10 years or so…

‘My way’ basically consists in a mix of honest smile, enthusiastic story-telling and transparency over ‘the bigger picture’ for every task I give. I approach delegation based on confidence, empowerment and control in variable dosage, depending on the compatibility between the person and the task. I strive to ensure individual (or team) recognition for the result, and share failure in a manner aimed not to judge, but to learn from what went wrong. I can be understanding and demanding at the same time, but I do commit to personal involvement whenever needed (either as a fall-back option or as an escalation support). Sometimes I need to ask for temporary ‘sacrifices’ but try not to forget compensating for that afterwards.

Finally, I admit that I had my fair shares of failures, but somehow managed not to allow them to discourage me to start over again – and this is exactly the motivation behind today’s Manager’s Mirror.

So… you are now challenged! Look in your mirror once again, find your own way and trust it - today and always!